


devil's advocate

by ingenious_spark



Series: Les Miserables drabbles [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil
Genre: Arguing, Canon Era, Kissing, M/M, Mild Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-06-10
Packaged: 2017-12-14 13:59:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/837674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ingenious_spark/pseuds/ingenious_spark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Prompt: Perhaps some E/R where they start off getting into a serious argument but it ends with them making out?</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Grantaire is so brilliant, so talented and he’s wasting it at the bottom of a bottle. It makes Enjolras so incandescently angry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	devil's advocate

Enjolras is mad. Grantaire seems to be the only person who makes him this mad. Everyone else he can debate with, reason with, but Grantaire _does not listen_ , and it drives Enjolras  _mad_. Combeferre tells Enjolras repeatedly  _(after nearly every meeting)_  that Grantaire’s views are important - that if they cannot convince one man how may they even attempt to convince the people?

Devil’s advocates are necessary, but rarely appreciated.

Enjolras can’t even remember how this fight started. They’ve essentially gone from actually debating the issue at hand to verbally lacerating each other. At this point, only Courfeyrac and Combeferre are lingering, the rest having left the back room for the revelry of the front - wine and dance, song and women are more appealing than two quarrelsome men. 

Grantaire has moved on to denigrating himself again. This has to be the stage of the dark-haired man’s thought processes he genuinely hates. 

And he does. Grantaire is so brilliant, so talented and he’s wasting it at the bottom of a bottle. It makes Enjolras so incandescently angry.

“I don’t understand you,” he finally hisses out, stepping forward into Grantaire’s space. Grantaire steps backwards, and Enjolras matches him step for step, completely unconscious in his motion. Enjolras sees Courfeyrac make as if to slide between them from the corner of his eye, but Combeferre stays him, a hand against his chest.

“You have so much potential, and you waste it,” he continues, and Grantaire makes the expression Enjolras hates, the only expression Grantaire can make that he  _hates_  - that turned-inward look of loathing.

“There is not much for it, is there? You’ve said yourself that there is nothing more to me than the bottle in my hand.” His tone is bitter, so bitter Enjolras can almost  _taste_  it, bright and sharp and hateful on his tongue. Grantaire is clever, even when drunk, to twist Enjolras’s own words back against him. Enjolras can’t help the venom that slips into his speech now.

“I have said that you only _let_ there be nothing to you but the bottle in your hand, do you not _listen_?” He grabs Grantaire’s chin, hardly noticing that he’s got the shorter man backed up against the wall now, and meets Grantaire’s eyes - eyes that are burning a brighter blue than usual tonight. “You  _infuriate_  me, because you do not _try_. What is man but his own striving? If you lay content, wallowing in cynicism, you will ever remain there and I cannot just stand idly by and watch you do such a thing!” Grantaire’s eyes have dropped; long sooty eyelashes covering that brightly-burning blue. Enjolras shakes the other man just a little, just enough to get those eyes back on him. “I will not see a man of your potential waste himself away, much less one I would call my friend.” Enjolras loosens his grip when he realizes what one of the unfamiliar emotions burning in Grantaire’s eyes is - terror. “I have frightened you,” he says uncertainly, moving to take a step back, to give Grantaire space to breathe. His motion is aborted by the way that Grantaire clutches the loose fabric of his sleeves, not quite grasping his arms, but nearly. 

“It is not you that terrifies me, it is your conviction in me,” Grantaire manages to gasp out, head bowed and shoulders shaking. “For I know I will disappoint you time and again, and your disappointment is like a blade between my ribs.” Enjolras stays close, and tips Grantaire’s head up tenderly this time.

“Faithful Grantaire you would not disappoint me. I would only ask you _try_ , and if you would do that I would never be disappointed again.” There are tears overspilling brilliantly blue eyes now, and Enjolras does not even think - he merely leans in, and gently seals his mouth over Grantaire’s trembling lips. 

He is not well-versed in kissing, but Grantaire seems not to care, as he sighs into it, and all the tension leaves his body. Enjolras ends the soft press of lips, only to trail his mouth to one closed eye and gently kiss away salty tears. Grantaire makes a sound like a hiccuping sigh, not a sob but almost there, and Enjolras carefully attends his other eye. Grantaire’s hands have found purchase on the back of Enjolras’s neck, holding on as if Enjolras is the only thing keeping him upright. Enjolras wraps on secure arm around Grantaire’s waist and then kisses him again, warm and full of promise. 

This kiss is more than just a chaste press of mouths, this is Enjolras claiming and Grantaire yielding with no more protest than a token sigh and a tilted head. Enjolras presses Grantaire more fully against the wall and _takes_  what is offered so willingly up to him. By the time Enjolras leaves Grantaire’s mouth to trail hot, biting kisses across a rough-stubbled jaw and down the pale column of the other man’s throat, Grantaire is _wrecked_ , flushed and gasping for air, eyes huge and dark. Enjolras tugs lightly at a fistful of ebon curls, and abandons Grantaire’s throat in favor of his mouth, leaving a tiny stinging bite on one reddened lip before soothing it with his tongue.

Grantaire welcomes Enjolras with his whole body, as if laid out in supplication. Enjolras may be the one worshiping Grantaire with lips, teeth and tongue, but Grantaire’s submission feels like a form of worship in itself. He leans back, and Grantaire chases him, leaving one, two kisses of his own before realizing what he’s doing. Enjolras looks down at the positively startled, lust-addled expression on the other’s face and smiles, unbearably fond.

“I ask you to try, Grantaire, because I do care for you. I would see you happy, or at the least content.” He says, voice husky. Grantaire laughs, a tiny, genuine thing, more of a chuckle, but bright, sweet on Enjolras’s tongue when he leans in to kiss the smile that accompanies it. Grantaire is still smiling when he pulls away to let the dark-haired man speak.

“Enjolras,” and he must kiss him again, quick and soft, because Grantaire has a singular aversion to actually calling him by his  _name_ , “Enjolras, you have given me all I will ever need to be happy in this very moment. If you were to never kiss me again I would still be happy,” Enjolras interrupts him again with a longer, sweeter kiss, because Grantaire’s self-worth has always been a cause for his concern. Grantaire looks a little cross-eyed when Enjolras lets him up, but rallies valiantly. “You must understand, it is not easy for me. I will slip, I will fail. But if you would ask me, I would try.  _God_  I would try.” Enjolras trails kisses from the hollow of Grantaire’s throat to the shell of his ear and speaks gently, quietly.

“If you slip I will be there to pick you back up. If you fail I will be there to help you. If you would try, I would love you, though my traitorous heart is already yours.” The words are murmured into Grantaire’s ear, and he shudders against Enjolras, drawing him into a kiss bordering on desperate. Enjolras slows him, tempers him, until they part tenderly.

“Then I will try,” Grantaire vows.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://oopsbirdficced.tumblr.com/post/52364319255/perhaps-some-e-r-where-they-start-off-getting-into-a)
> 
> I am now accepting drabble requests at my writing tumblr, oopsbirdficced


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